Chapter 165: In Need Of Defense

Chapter 165: In Need Of Defense

As painful as it was, I wasnt able to heal myself yet.

Wills frozen body needed to be dealt with before anything else; with my slow-venom having run dry and my body horribly injured, I didnt have any desire to tangle with him again. He needed to be freed from the Lesser Cores influence, and it needed to happen fast.

I let a few drops of vigor flow through my fangs, formed from the meager bits of life essence that remained within my mana core, and immediately noticed The Grateful Ones strength surge as the thought-light flickered twice.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vigor II] Increased.

[Life - Vigor III] Acquired.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life Essence Manipulation V] Increased.

[Life Essence Manipulation VI] Acquired.

It wasnt just the increase to the strength of [Life - Vigor] brought on by the thought-light; The Grateful One just somehow responded to the altered life essence far more than she should have. I was thankful for that. If she hadnt, things might have gone poorly. More poorly, anyway. Even in victory, the situation was far from perfect.

My ribs were still shattered, my mana was almost out, and we still needed to somehow drag Will outside of the spore-mists influence.

I was glad that I wouldnt have to be the one to do it.

The Grateful One stepped forward, already recovered from the excitement of battle, and kneeled down beside the corrupted disciples paralyzed body. Her hand slipped towards his chest, reaching underneath the ore-flesh plating, fishing for something.

His [Little Guardians Totem] came out a moment later, and I finally realized something. Though Will was the most durable of the Great Cores disciples, it hadnt been his body alone that had been resisting my heavily mana-infused slow-venom. The [Little Guardians Focus] had been fighting it as well, reducing its effectiveness to a degree.

That was both good and bad. The good part was that it meant that my slow-venom might not have been as outmatched as I thought; for all I knew, the fight would have ended much faster had I been able to separate him from the healing it provided.

At the same time, it meant that I needed to watch for the same with the other stolen disciples. True, they wouldnt be as resistant as Will turned out to be, but their ability to heal - even hindered by a portion of the healing going towards the [Little Guardians Focus]s constant efforts to remove the spore-roots infecting them - would mean that they could take more damage than I might have guessed.

It was lucky that The Grateful One had noticed the problem. If Will had broken out of the slow-venoms effect earlier than expected, we would have been forced to run away. The thought rankled; we had earned that victory, as bloody as it had been.

My jaws opened wide. Mana-water flowed in.

By the time that I broke the surface, I was already beginning to feel a burning sensation within my mana core, that too-stretched sensitivity that I knew heralded a sharp dive into something far worse; the same warning signs that I had experienced when fighting the Aridae in the first few slithers of my journey.

The once-corrupted had already gathered, managing with sheer numbers what The Grateful One and I alone could not. Their combined weight pressed against his arms, his legs, and his chest until I almost lost sight of Will himself.

Keep holding him down, I heard the once-corrupted disciple say. It wont be much longer now.

Propelled by another thought-hiss, my body painfully slithered forward. Meanwhile, my mind was busy with [Mana-Life Conversion], forcing the mana I had gathered to shift its hues. Blue turned to gold, and then gold split in two.

That done, my fangs pressed against his flesh. It was just as frustratingly resistant as before. Yet, unlike before, there was little danger. A new thought-hiss forced them to press down harder.

They pierced the surface, and vitality was finally able to flow - and flow, it did. Both slow-venom and spore-roots were defeated in turn, the efforts of the gathered Coreless preventing the spore-roots final efforts from accomplishing anything.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vitality IX] Increased.

[Life - Vitality X] Acquired.

Just like that, another stolen disciple was freed from the Lesser Cores corruption.

Still, there was another challenge waiting for me. My near-death had shown how easily this life - and everything that I had accomplished in it - could be lost; it was too risky to venture out into the spore-mist with only The Grateful One in tow. She was strong, but her strength was in her grace and dexterity; it wasnt in defense.

I needed something different to defend me while I was in the mists.

I needed a protector.

I needed Will.

Hopefully he would agree with that.